Bryan A. Garner, "Garner's Modern American Usage (2nd Edition) (Repost)"

The first edition of Garner's Modern American Usage established Bryan Garner as "an American equivalent of Fowler" (Library Journal). With more than 23,500 copies sold, this witty, accessible, and engaging book has become the new classic reference work praised by professional copyeditors as well as the general public looking for clear advice on how to write more effectively. In 1999, Choice magazine named it an Outstanding Academic Book and the American Library Association dubbed it an Outstanding Reference Source.

With thousands of succinct entries, longer essays on key issues and problematic areas, and up-to-the-minute judgments on everything from trendy words to the debate over personal pronouns, GMAU is approachable yet authoritative. Since the book first appeared in 1998, Bryan Garner has diligently continued tracking how we use our language. The second edition includes hundreds of new entries ranging from Dubya to weaponize (coined in 1984 but used extensively since 9/11) to foot-and-mouth, plethora (a "highfalutin equivalent of too many"), Slang, Standard English, and Dialects. It also updates hundreds of existing entries.

Meanwhile, Garner has written a major essay on the great grammar debate between descriptivists and prescriptivists. Painstakingly researched with copious citations from books and newspapers and newsmagazines, this new edition furthers Garner's mission to help everyone become a better writer, and to enjoy it in the process.

From Booklist
Garner's Modern American Usage is the latest by the author and editor of several legal dictionaries (including Black's Law Dictionary), among other works on language and style. The second edition maintains the same basic format as the first (called Dictionary of Modern American Usage), published in 1998: each entry discusses the usage of the word, provides quotations for illustration, and gives citations.

There are two types of entries. Word entries, which are generally short, discuss individual words or groups of words. Essay entries discuss topics related to usage and style, including contractions, danglers, punctuation, and subject-verb agreement, among others. Compared to the first edition's entry for complexioned; complected, the second edition makes only minor editorial changes; the real difference is the easier-to-read spacing in the updated volume. The second edition shows more substantive changes in the essay entry for Passive voice without changing the basic meaning or adding unnecessarily to the length of the essay. New entries include DVD, Internet, World Wide Web, and, as Garner insists, webpage.

The Columbia Guide to Standard American English (Columbia Univ., 1993) takes a more prescriptive tone than Garner's and maintains more succinct entries on usage topics (comparing entries on passive voice, for instance). The New Fowler's Modern English Usage (3d ed., Oxford, 2000) is more descriptive, on the other hand, and includes examples from published fiction, where most of Garner's quotations come from newspapers and journals. Because of its somewhat conversational style and extensive essays on usage topics like sexism, Garner's might be best used, as the author suggests, for "browsing a little at a time or for serious reading" and later consultation. Appended material includes a glossary, "A Timeline of Books on Usage," and a selected bibliography. Recommended for public and academic libraries, especially if the institution does not own the first edition.

Tags: EnglishUsage, WritingReference

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